


We'll All Float On Okay

by IronicAppreciation



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Multi, Some shippy stuff, a bit of underage sex, nothing even descriptive tbh, nothing graphic, post 1958, pre 1985, ships are NOT the main focus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-13 17:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12988533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronicAppreciation/pseuds/IronicAppreciation
Summary: They all knew it had to end, sometime.





	1. L

Beverly Marsh is the first to go. 

It happens a couple of weeks after the Losers finish their eighth grade year. Bev is 14 years old, and she's let her hair grow all the way down to her buttocks, falling in thick, spindly swirls and flaring bright, vehement red. She's wearing bras, now, and she's just had her first period, too. Her figure is more shapely, her face having lost its childish chub. She's growing up, and the whole town knows it. Growing into a bright, beautiful, brilliant young woman. 

Which is exactly why there is no way in  _hell_ Elfrida Marsh can let her stay here. 

Because  _here_ is too damn close to the cell holding a violent, conniving, unpredictable sexual predator she used to call her husband. One her daughter used to call  _"Dad."_

Beverly isn't safe here. She never has been. But now,  _now_ , now that her hips have grown curved and her waist has cinched inward and her breasts are well-defined against her blouses,  _now_ , she's even less safe than she was before. 

Her baby girl's growing up. And Elfrida'll be damned if she lets her grow up so close to  _him._

So she does the only thing she can think to do. The only thing a mom caught between a rock so big it might as well be a boulder and a hard place _can_ do. 

She ships her one and only daughter off to Portland, Oregon to live with her sister. At least until she's finished with high school, and ready to go off into the big bad world all by her lonesome.  

Which, all things considered, shouldn't be so bad. 

Beverly's always loved the beach, after all. Loved the feeling of the sand between her toes and the smell of the salt on the sea. Loved it back when she was three years old and visiting the Atlantic coast for the first time. Loved it back when Al Marsh was still a father, and held her hand as she splashed around in tide pools. Loved digging her little fingers into the wet dirt to mold drawings onto the damp earth, never crying when the tide came in and washed them away. Loved balancing seashells and stones on top of one another in meticulous piles, laughing her little heart out when they inevitably toppled over. Loved racing the waves to see who could get to shore the fastest. 

And yeah, she's only met her aunt once before, as an infant, but Elfrida's sure Beverly will love her, too. She's sweet, and spunky, and stubborn. A helluva lot like her niece.

And when Elfrida sits her daughter down one night on the couch and explains all this, squeezing her hand ever so softly in between intervals of desperate justifications, brown eyes glistening and breath hiccuping over some of the words stumbling clumsily out of her lips like confessionals of blood drip drip dripping down the chin of a soldier who's just been shot, Beverly  _knows_ it makes sense.

It makes sense for her to go somewhere she'll be safer. Somewhere she'll be  _happier._

So why, then, is it so damn  _hard_  to leave? 

Its not like she's ever liked this town. Nobody who lives in Derry really  _likes_ it.   
(What's there to like?)

And life here has been _hell_ for her, in particular. Whether said hell has been raised by her father or by Bowers or by the girls in her class or by teachers, it's always been there. Every minute of every day.

But. They've all got reasons to stay. 

For Beverly Marsh, those reasons take the corporeal form of six eleven-year-olds she met One Summer nearly four years ago, six eleven-year olds who changed her life, for better or for worse, now sprawled lazily in the glare of the sun off the banks of the Derry Barrens, all caught somewhere within that awkward stage between being a boy and being a man, when you're either too skinny for your height or too short for your age. 

And, as she marches in through the tall, dry grass that crunches aggressively at even the slightest of movements, glancing around at Her Boys and the gilded backs of their heads, she decides instantly that the news her mom has chosen today to share with her can wait.

Because Bill's got his head buried in the crook of Stan Uris's neck, and Ben's pants are hiked up, his feet wading in the creek, and Mike is strategically embedding clovers in Eddie Kaspbrak's hair, while Richie dangles his gangling legs over the rock ledge, a cigarette tucked between his teeth. And Bev knows, in that single, sunkissed afternoon moment, the heat hissing and the water sloshing and the bugs buzzing their murmured discontent regarding the ruthless temperatures, that she'd rather  _die_ than do anything to disrupt this. 

Whatever  _this_ is. 

So, she doesn't. Instead, she plasters on a smile and dashes forward with a wave, grinning brightly and shouting some sort of greeting as Her Boys turn to face her, intercepting Mike's enveloping hug and bumping her fist against Richie's, swindling a swift drag from his cigarette, then swiveling and ruffling Eddie's hair just to annoy him, planting a big, sloppy smooch on the top of Stan's head, nudging Bill in the ribs with her foot, and finally skidding to lie down beside Ben and look out over the river.

As the sun climbs into its bed beyond the horizon and in betwixt the silhouetted mountaintops, and nightfall brings with it an implacably humid chill, and Beverly feels Ben scooching just the tiniest bit closer, blathering about the book Bill's making him read ("It's absolutely  _awful,_ Bev, you wouldn't believe!" "I can huh-hear you, yknow?" "That's kind of the point, Billiam."), she determines solemnly that the Kenduskeag stream is the only ocean she'll ever need. 

That night, she bids Her Boys farewell just like she always does, and pretends that her mom hasn't already purchased a non-refundable, one way plane ticket to Portland for a flight that leaves next week. 

<><><>

Richie's the first one she tells. It's four days before The Move, and most of her bags are already packed, and her room is all but  _empty,_ and Bev really,  _really_ needs a cigarette. 

_(She remembers when Bill stopped smoking, just over a year ago, right outside their clubhouse; he inhaled one last, sharp breath from his Marlboro, flicked it to the ground and crushed it underneath his heel, then smiled at her with his Bill Denbrough Smile and told her he wouldn't be showing up to these rendezvous anymore. Beverly has no idea why he quit. She wonders idly if she ever will.)_

Richie's standing there, as always, when she arrives. She's fairly sure this is the only thing he's ever bothered being punctual for. Wordlessly, she produces a lighter and hands it to him, and he thanks her in what she assumes is his best attempt at an 1800s English Gent's accent ("Don't call me 'governor', Rich. The day I go into politics is the day I successfully put a bullet in my brain.") before laughing shrewdly and resting a bony arm on the top of her head. 

Bev can't recall exactly when Richie got to be taller than her; she only knows that it still perturbs her, to this day. 

In lieu of a response, she elbows him hard in the side, and stifles a grin at the involuntary  _yelp_ he lets out. 

Five smokes later, she lets slip the one thing she's been trying to deny herself for nearly a week, the reason she needed to get out of the goddamn house in the first place. 

She tells him that she's going away.

In a remarkable feat of uncharacteristic sovereignty, Richie fails to crack a joke or impersonate a Voice. He just gawks at her for an uncomfortably long amount of time, then lunges forward and engulfs her in a bone-bruising hug. 

It's only when she smells the nicotine on his breath and the detergent wafting from his shirt that Bev allows herself to cry, and admit that she'll miss this stupid fucking shithole of a town. 

The next day, she exchanges final goodbyes, hugs each of Her Boys one last time, and swears with every bone in her body she won't _dare_ lose touch. 

In those final few minutes of Forever, Beverly takes a good hard look at her life. She memorizes the freckles that mottle Stan's nose. The mole that resides just under the curvature of Richie's cheekbone. The exact shade of Mike's lips. The tiny sunkissed spots that litter Eddie's face. The coarse yet soft texture of Bill's hair. 

The color of Ben's eyes.   
(My heart burns there, too.)

_(She kissed him, once, so briefly and chastely that neither of them were sure it was even real. But now, as she gazes at him with an intensity in her eyes uncontested by wildfire, she remembers those few fleeting seconds like they made up the very blueprint of her life, composed the etched foundation on which all else will grow, assumed the spotlight, center stage, as the singlemost spectacular phenomenon of her fallible existence, forcing all other instances of greatness to dim their lights so it could shine the brightest.)_

And then, she is gone. 

The postcards and the letters and the phonecalls come almost on the daily, at first. 

But, as the months wear on, contact flickers and fades out. 

Twice a week.

Once a week.

Once a month.

Once every six months. 

Only on special occasions, like birthdays and holidays.

Twice a year.

Once a year.

Once every other year.

Once every _other_ other year. 

.....

By the time the Losers are old enough to drive, Beverly Marsh is nothing more than the distant, indiscernible recollection of a flash of red or imperceptible laugh, a photo of a girl pinned up on the corkboard in the clubhouse that the boys all pretend they recognize. 

_(Your hair is winter fire.)_

_(January Embers.)_

_(My heart burns there, too.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know there is some mild Canon Divergence. I know I tagged 2017, but pretty much all of this stuff comes from the book, so if you've only seen the film, it might be less impactful. Please leave a comment, they help me wake up every morning.


	2. O

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, maybe I lied about the Stenbrough being "only if you squint"

If you'd asked Eddie Kaspbrak to imagine a life in which Bill Denbrough didn't live just a few blocks away, in the last house down the street, always awake before even the sun itself made an effort to show its drowsy face, he might've gone into cardiac arrest, right then and there. 

Now, there's no imagination required. 

Because on the first day of winter break in the year of '63, a sixteen year old, lanky, skinny iteration of the boy he's known since he was three, the boy he's followed beyond the ends of the earth and all the way to the devil's doorframe, the boy he'd die for without a second's hesitation, trudges glumly over the snowy hilltops to Their Spot on the Barrens and announces despondently that he's leaving before the end of the year. 

Eddie forgets how to breathe. 

 _("Placebos, Eddie,"_ the contorted memory of the Pharmacist's voice reminds him sternly.  _"They're fake. It's not real. None of this is real. You don't need the medicine. You've_ never _needed the medicine.")_

(But he _does_ need Bill.)

 _(He'll_ always _need Bill.)_

As is just so happens, the Denbroughs have, apparently, deemed the prospect of living with the ghost of their late son any longer a trouble too trifling to bear.   
(Although they've expressed absolutely _no_ dilemma regarding the ghost of their  _live_ son, whom they've been pretending not to see for the past six and a half years.)

Thus, when Zack Denbrough is offered a job with better pay and superior benefits across the country in Washington, he and his wife promptly decide that there is no ambivalence left; that this is clearly a sign from _God_ , an opportunity to alleviate their years and years of silent suffering. 

Evidently, they haven't thought it apt to inform the kid they _can't quite leave behind_ that they're going until today. 

Today. Exactly three weeks before they pack up their home and drive to a city as far away from Maine as they can possibly get.

Today. The first of the last 20 days the Losers have left with their unproclaimed stuttering leader.

So when Bill clambers onto the frigid, icy earth, long legs folded beneath him and nuzzling slightly into Ben's ample side, there's not much that can be said. 

A somber few seconds of silence settle along with the flittering fall of snowflakes trickling down from the overcast skies, accompanied by a suffocating semblance of despair none of the boys can manage to place. Ben recalls, fleetingly, the peculiar sensation of a misplaced solace: a raucous, jubilant exclamation that would've indubitably put an abrupt end to their irreverent moping, if only for a moment.  

_(He remembers, for less than a second, the exact pitch of Beverly Marsh's voice. Remembers the flash of green in her eyes when she got serious and their shimmering golden glint when she was happy. Remembers the feeling of her chapped lips on his own, the warmth of her body pressed against him with an unnamed desperation.)_

_(He Remembers, and then he Doesn't.)_

They don't speak all that much for the rest of the frosty evening, but by the time the moon peeks scrutinously over the horizon, they've all arranged themselves in a huddled, cozy pile of manufactured hope and unspoken love around Ben and Bill, each having wordlessly shifted over as the evening sun made its gloomy descent. 

Richie's got his arm slung around Eddie's shoulders, and for once, the latter has nothing to say about it. Mike has saddled up against Ben's back, placing his chin on the other boy's shoulder and balancing his head against his neck. 

Stanley sits, crosslegged, next to Bill, who's still burrowed incandescently in Ben's side, a furious discrepancy of miserable worthlessness fighting for solidarity on the planes of his narrow cheeks. 

_(And if anyone sees his fingers brush against Bill's and linger until the latter's hooked his pinky around Stan's thumb, not a word is said about it.)_

They sit there, unmoving, unbelieving, all praying to some god none of them truly believe in that if they Unexpect their reality hard enough, they can make it Not True. 

They sit there until it's too cold to sit there anymore, and then, for good measure, they sit a couple minutes more. 

When they leave, not one of them bothers saying goodbye. 

<><><>

_Bill stopped smoking after he kissed Stan for the first time._

_He crushed his last cigarette underneath his shoe, and told Bev not to wait up._

_Because Bill Denbrough decided, at age 14, that he didn't ever want to leave the taste of ash or smoke or anything foul in Stanley Uris's mouth._

_Because he decided there should never be anything bitter or rotten or burnt lingering between their lips when he placed his hands on either side of his friend's face and drowned his every uncertainty and frozen fear in a flurry of warm fingers and chapped smiles._

_Because he decided he'd rather_ die  _all over again than do anything that might make Stan regret him._

<><><>

The night he leaves in the December of 1963, Stanley Uris smokes his first cigarette.

_(He smokes his last some twenty-two years later, a couple of sparse hours before he decides unprecedentedly to take a bath.)_

He absolutely _loathes_ it, from the second the thing enters his mouth. He hates every damn thing about it. Hates how inhaling makes him cough. Hates how _exhaling_ makes him cough. Hates how it makes him feel like Eddie _fucking_ Kaspbrak, because suddenly, he's _wheezing_ , and the ceaseless span of oxygen all around him isn't enough to keep him afloat. 

_(He's drowning.)_

Hates that it makes his eyes water. Hates how it tastes. Hates how said taste _remains_ , much to his dismay, hours after the fire's been put out. 

_(Drowning, like those boys.)_

Hates the way the smoke gets caught in his throat. Hates how, sometimes, when he spits, black charcoal swirls revoltingly in his saliva. 

 _(Those_ boys _.)_

Hates that no matter how much he _hates_ it, he can't seem to stop. 

_(He's going to drown.)_

Hates that all the gum and vigorous brushing in the world can't get the smell of smoke out of his breath. Hates how his mouth perpetually exudes the rotten taste of festering _ash_. 

_(He's going to die.)_

Hates that Patty comments on it as a _joke_ , with a wrinkle of her nose, and the stupid, insignificant remark keeps him up all night, for no good reason at all. 

_(Oh god, he's going to die.)_

Hates how, for the _life_ of him, he can't remember exactly when he started, or why. It certainly doesn't _seem_ like him to take up such a terrible, repulsive habit. 

_(He can't do this.)_

Hates how he hates it _so goddamn much_ but he can't make himself hate it enough to _stop_.

_(He can't do this. He can't do this he can't do this he cantdothis hecantdothis hecantdothishecantdothishecantdothishecant-)_

Hates how, even two and a half decades after the name _Bill Denbrough_ stops meaning _anything_ to him, Stanley Uris is still addicted to nicotine. 

<><><>

If you'd asked Eddie Kaspbrak to imagine a life in which Bill Denbrough was only an occasional phone call or misplaced letter from a friend whose face got harder and harder to remember each and every day, he'd have told you, in all his teenaged angry glory, to go fuck yourself. 

Now, at seventeen years old, Eddie stands with his bike perched up at the end of the street, wondering confoundedly why the moving van outside the house that's been "FOR SALE" for nearly a year comes as such a shock to him. Why it feels so _wrong_ to see the two little girls playing happily in the front yard, while their father watches tiredly from the doorframe. 

He wonders, as he bikes home as fast as he possibly can, until he's shaky at the knees and entirely out of breath

_(placebos, Eddie-)_

why, when the elder of the sisters walked up to him and asked him, "what's wrong, mister?", in the clearest, most concise voice he'd ever heard come from a child, he felt like he was going to _puke_ , right then and there. 

When Eddie arrives at his house that night, he doesn't turn right into his driveway like he does every other day. Instead, he accelerates, and _rides_ , rides faster and faster and _faster-_

_(Fast enough to beat the devil)_

-and doesn't fucking _stop_ until he reaches Richie Tozier's doorstep and falls with a clatter into his front yard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have never touched a cigarette in my life, so all that angst is probably hilariously inaccurate. 
> 
> Please comment, it would make my year!!


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